Enrique Lihn
Encyclopedia
Enrique Lihn Carrasco was a Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

an poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

, playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...

, and novelist. The son of Enrique Lihn Doll and María Carrasco Délano, he married Ivette Mingram (1932-2008) and they had one daughter: Andrea María Lihn Mingram, an actress.

Born in 1929 at Santiago, Chile
Santiago, Chile
Santiago , also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile, and the center of its largest conurbation . It is located in the country's central valley, at an elevation of above mean sea level...

, Lihn aspired to be a painter but after a failed attempt during university, he abandoned that dream to pursue writing. Lihn proceeded to develop into a poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

, playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...

, and novelist. He taught literature at the University of Chile. Lihn views both the past and the future as forms of death, and his emphasis on this point is evident throughout his literary works. His work revolved around his contempt for the contemporary dictatorship
Dictatorship
A dictatorship is defined as an autocratic form of government in which the government is ruled by an individual, the dictator. It has three possible meanings:...

, as Chile was governed by a military junta
Military dictatorship
A military dictatorship is a form of government where in the political power resides with the military. It is similar but not identical to a stratocracy, a state ruled directly by the military....

. Works layered with social, political, and religious commentary are common throughout Lihn's canon. His final book, Diario de Muerte was written in the six weeks preceding his death from cancer in Santiago, and the evening before he died, he corrected the proofs.

Poetry

  • The Dark Room
  • Cemetery in Punta Arenas
  • Six Poems of Loneliness
  • Torture Chamber
    Torture chamber
    A torture chamber is a room where torture is inflicted.- Methods of coercion :According to Frederick Howard Wines in his book Punishment and Reformation: A Study Of The Penitentiary System there were three main types of coercion employed in the torture chamber: Coercion by the cord, by water and...

  • Of All Despondencies
  • A Favourite Little Shrine
  • Goodnight, Achilles

Works in English

The Dark Room and Other Poems, transl. by Jonathan Cohen, John Felstiner, and David Unger, 1978, New Directions
http://books.google.com/books?id=wKG7YSp2gYUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22+subject:%22Poetry+/+Caribbean+%26+Latin+American%22&lr=&as_brr=3&sig=O3xVutKKfAlLYKxWTjcsHciTyxE#v=onepage&q&f=false

Figures of Speech, transl. by Dave Oliphant, 1999, Host Publications, Inc. http://www.hostpublications.com

External links

  • Enrique Lihn papers, 1941-1988. Research Library at the Getty Research Institute. Los Angeles, California. Papers include correspondence with poets, literary writers and journalists, publishers, artists, critics, and family and friends; research and lecture notes; drawings and collages; clippings, offprints and other printed matter; drafts of novels, poems, scripts, lectures, and essays; publications and photocopies of publications; and notebooks containing transcripts of interviews, drafts of essays and literary writings, letters, notes. Also included are some of the papers of the Chilean painter, Pablo Burchard.
  • http://www.enriquelihn.cl
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK